The new beginning
by godservantstella
Summary: What lies after the note? Was it real? Or was it all an illusion?
1. Chapter 1

A heart attack.

That was how it all ended.

Blackness, dark, cold, pain.

Death.

He could feel it's cold fingers squeezing the last drops of life from his convulsing body. He screamed to the only one he thought to have been on his side. The one who had killed him, black notebook in hand. He cackled at the sight of his previous source of entertainment writhing in pain on the cold floor. He had always said that he would be the one to kill him. Now that it was finally happening, he couldn't stop the game from ending. Darkness closed in around him, his life fading fast. He closed his eyes. The convulsions stopped. The slip of paper, red with his blood, lay on the ground. It was over.

The game had ended.

The dream was over.


	2. Chapter 2

Light Yagami opened his eyes. The sun was shining brightly through the glass door near his bed. Dazed, he sat up, heart still beating fast. His body was drenched in sweat and he was shivering from the nonexistent cold that still gripped his body. Confusion clouded his mind and he stood up. He looked in the mirror and stepped back from the shock of what was staring back at him. It was himself, of course, but he was younger. High school age, even. The age that, he remembered, he found the death note.

_Was it all a dream?_ He wondered. Light didn't believe it to be possible, he had remembered it so clearly. He had lived it, those years of his life. There was no possible way that it was just a dream.

Light peeled off his clothing, still moistened with sweat, and showered off the grime that he felt after a sleep of what seemed like an eternity. He put on his uniform for school and walked downstairs. The house smelled of fresh cooked bacon, with the faint scent of eggs wafting to meet his nose alongside it. It seemed like any other day would have been. As he turned into the kitchen, he saw his mother with the food.

"Good morning, mom," Light said faintly.

"Good morning, Light!" his mother replied "How did you sleep?"

"Good enough. Where's Sayu?"

"Here!" the cheery voice of his younger sister called from the hallway. She certainly wasn't acting like a former kidnapping victim. "Is breakfast ready?"

"You came down just in time, Sayu. Breakfast is finished. Light, would you and Sayu set the table?"

"Yeah," Light replied. He was still finding it hard to believe that he wasn't just convulsing at the feet of a shinigami. He put his hand to his chest to feel his heartbeat.

_1…2…3… So I'm still alive… but what is all of this?_

As Light ate his breakfast, not hearing the happy chattering of his sister or feeling the looks of concern thrown his direction from his mother, he thought of the previous night's events.

_I found the death note, killed thousands of criminals, faced off with the legendary detective L….and won, and was killed in the end by Near and the shinigami…_

_But why am I alive?_

He looked at the clock. 8 am.

"Sayu, doesn't your school start at 8:15?"

"Yeah, what time is it?"

"It's 8, Sayu…"

"What!? I'm sorry, mom, I'm gonna be late!" Sayu said as she dashed out the door, running full speed to make the 20-minute walk into a 12-minute run.

"You should probably get going as well, Light," his mother said, a look of concern on her face. "Is everything alright, dear?"

"Oh, yeah mom. I'll be on my way now. Thank you for the meal."

Light grabbed his bag and walked outside. The weather was nice and the sun was shining, it's rays warming his back. His mind remained on the so-called dream that he had had the night before. The more he thought, the more impossible it seemed. _A notebook that can kill? It's ridiculous, insane, stupid! It must have been a dream! I would never kill a man, anyways!_

Light had convinced himself that it had only been a dream by the time that he had reached his classroom. As he sat down and the day's lesson began, he couldn't help but be bored. Light let his mind wander as he gazed through the window. His classes bored him, there was nothing new to learn. That was his punishment for studying too hard; no gain of knowledge inside the school building. He let his mind wander back to the dream he had lived the night before._ Crime has been becoming more ubiquitous these days. It's a shame that no one does anything… _

The final bell rang. Light left the classroom in a haze. As he was walking he glanced at the square of grass that filled the empty space on campus near the exit gate. A small black rectangle materialized in a small patch of the green. Light's eyes widened as he neared the black object, eyeing the white scrawling on the front of the book. English. He studied the notebook, not daring to touch it. The white words burned into his eyes, so bold on the black cover; _**Death Note**_.

Light picked up the notebook, hands shaking as he opened it to the first page, headed with the simple words _How to Use. _Everything, just as he had dreamed it. _The human whose name is written in this notebook shall die of a heart attack._

He took the notebook and shoved it into his bag, contemplating what to do with it the whole way home. _Burn it? Throw it in a lake? I can't use this thing, not after I've seen what comes next…_

Light looked to the sky, his heart beating hard and fast in his chest. He couldn't just leave it; someone else might use it for personal gain. Just like in Yotsuba…

Light thought about it so long that his head started to ache._ If I destroy it, the shinigami might kill me. But if I leave it, then someone could use it for evil. If I gave it back to the shinigami, he would probably drop it elsewhere… what can I do?_

Light made his decision. He walked to the canal near his house and peered into the murky waters. Opening his bag, he pulled out the notebook. _The shinigami can fish it out if it wants it._

He dropped the notebook into the canal, sinking slowly. When it finally disappeared into the muck and weeds at the bottom of the man-made mass of water, he reached into his bag and pulled out an apple. _May as well try to appeal to them,_ he thought as he dropped the apple into the water. _Plop._ The apple bobbed on the surface of the water, refusing to be completely submerged. It was still drifting as Light walked away.


End file.
